Dateline NBC - A Villainous Plan

Episode Date: September 21, 2021

A Connecticut bank executive is targeted by a crew of criminals who invade his home, take him and his mother hostage and order him to rob his own bank. If he doesn’t commit the crime, they threaten to blow him up with a bomb strapped to his waist. Investigators think it looks like an inside job but after a string of similar crimes in Tennessee, they learn the victims were picked based on social media posts. Dennis Murphy has chosen this episode as one of his most memorable episodes. 

I'm Dennis Murphy. Just imagine for a moment you've wakened in the middle of the night, you go to the kitchen, and staring down at you from a backyard tree is a man with night vision goggles, but you never even know he's there. What you also don't know, he's watched your family's comings and goings for hours, taken notes, and his confederate has been poring over your social media posts. When they get all their intel together, they're coming for you and your family. Kidnapping, robbery. They're career criminals, and that's what they do.

We've always advised you not to dateline alone. For this one, up the ante. Gather as many friends as you can about you, and turn on all the lights. We called it a villainous plan. And was it ever terrifying. It's a beautiful September day in the western mountains of North Carolina. A beautiful stretch of interstate.

North Carolina State Highway Patrol is running radar and you see a Ford Edge blow right by. It started off as a routine traffic stop, but it was anything but routine. All of a sudden you see the SUV pull over. You see the passenger side door open briefly and then shut and then take off again. You hear the sirens. You hear the unmistakable roar of the engine. You see the vehicle swerve into the big truck. It takes off its driver's side mirror. It goes flying off and you see his ominous brake lights go on. And then you see him ram the side. He's hitting vehicles. He's just hitting a third vehicle.

Our story begins in 2015 with 46-year-old Matt Yussman, a chief financial officer of a credit union in central Connecticut. I've been playing hockey for 30-something years. I play every week, sometimes twice a week, all summer long, all winter long. Money management pays his bills, but hockey fuels his passion. He's the goalie for a team called the Trash Pandas. So your league plays on Sunday night. How'd you do that night?

We won our game, which was a good thing, but it was a late-night game. Matt's glow from a nice victory that February night ended after he headed home. He pulled up to the garage of his Bristol, Connecticut house around midnight. He didn't know two men were watching. I would just open the garage door, get out, take all my equipment out because I'm a goalie,

have a large bag. Matt's 70-year-old mother, Valerie, a retired nurse, was inside the home they shared, watching the Academy Awards. Matt moved his mom into the house after his dad, her husband of 40 years, had passed away. It was the night of the Oscars and they didn't finish till it was just about midnight or a few minutes after and it was right after that when I

heard the garage door open. As I'm walking back to the car to pull it in, I see somebody coming running down my driveway yelling, get on the ground, and I see he's pointing a gun at me. Tells me to kneel on the garage floor. As I'm kneeling there, he walks up behind me and sticks the gun right behind the back of my ear, presses it against my head, and says, lie face first on the ground. You heard him, he'd arrived home, huh?

Yes, and I was waiting for him to come into the house, and he wasn't coming in. As I'm being zip-tied, I look up, and I see another guy running down the driveway. Matt says the gunmen were covered head to toe in multi-layers of heavy clothing and dark ski goggles. Based on Matt's recollection, we created these images of those men. Could you have made out their faces? No, they had no distinguishing things that I could see. Did you even know what race they were? Everything was covered.

The only features he could make out, one was a tall, slender guy, the other heavy set. I got up to go out to the garage, and when I went out there, I saw Matt laying face down in the garage. And there were two masked gunmen over him holding guns on him. One of the gunmen swung around with his gun and pointed at me and said, come down into the garage here. He said, kneel beside your son. So this is all going bad very quickly. Yeah, this is going bad very quickly.

And I went down and I knelt beside my son and I said, please don't hurt us. Please don't hurt us. I said, we will do whatever you want. Mother and son quickly realized they were the victims of a home invasion. Neighbors couldn't see what was happening because their ranch house is set far back from the road on an isolated cul-de-sac. In case you're thinking this is going to play out, hopefully in the garage,

and we'll get past this. That was my whole thing was, you know what, take what you need, leave me, go. And I thought that was going to be the end of it. But it moves into the house. But it moves into the house. Inside, Matt was led to a couch. They immediately put a small knit hat over my head and duct taped the hat to my head so I couldn't see anything. Why didn't they just grab some valuables and leave?

He could never have guessed what their villainous plan for him really was. Coming up, the gunmen say they have a problem. And Matt Yussman is the solution. We owe some very bad people a lot of money, and you're going to get it for us. How much money? $4.2 million in cash. And that was nothing compared to what Matt heard next. They said, this is C4 explosive. We're going to make an explosive device,

and we're going to strap it to you. Two armed masked men were holding Matt Yussman and his mother hostage in their Connecticut home. Matt's mom was brought into her bedroom where they turned up the volume on her TV. She says she was instructed to lie down on the bed and stay there. Then she was left alone, but she could hear something alarming going on in the other room. That's where Matt was seated on a couch, his hands zip-tied, his eyes covered with a blindfold. I tried to listen to what they were saying to Matthew. They were putting on some headphones on him.

I heard them say that. And they'd put earphones on, and I'm just getting static and static, and I don't know what earphones on, and I'm just getting static and static, and I don't know what's going on, and all of a sudden I get a voice that sounds very synthesized, electronic, and the very first thing they said to me was, this is not a robbery, this is not a typical home invasion.

By using a device like this, the kidnappers could disguise their voices. This is not about a home invasion. This just gave me the creeps there, because that sounds very similar to what they did. Then they outlined their complex big plan, explaining why mom and son were being held captive. We're looking for a large sum of money. We owe some very bad people a lot of money, and you're going to get it for us. How much money? It was very specific.

They said to me, we want $4.2 million in cash. And there was something else that was unusually specific. The kidnappers knew intimate details about Matt's life. They knew where I worked, what I did, that I had my mother in the house. Matt, the CFO of Achieve Financial Credit Union, was told the next morning he would go to one of his branches and take $4.2 million out of the vault. Matt told them a credit union would never have that much money on hand. Still, he could get them something. This is where I lie for the first time, and I'm like, I can get you guys a million dollars. And they said, oh, a million dollars.

Hours passed. Matt says he sat on that couch tied up and blindfolded, wondering what was going to happen next. Had to be around 3 o'clock in the morning, I think. They get me up, and they say, you know what, we're going for a ride. That was the second time I got really scared because now I'm like, they're taking me away from the house. That's a line out of the bad movies, we're going to take you for a ride, right?

The gunman next went into his mom's room, carrying rolls of heavy-duty duct tape. They told her she was going to stay behind. And they wrapped my feet with duct tape to the bottom of my bed, and they said, just a precaution so that I wouldn't go anyplace while they went away. And I said, I will stay wherever you put me. I didn't dare try to get out of the bindings. Matt says he found himself in the backseat of one of the two vehicles he owns. They had actually put a pillow in the backseat of the car.

Don't know why, but they told me to stick my face into the pillow and not to move. We then proceed out my driveway. We drove for maybe 15 minutes. We parked, and I heard gravelly or just cracking snow. Like we'd gone off the side of the road. And I was like, wow, what's going to happen here? Are they taking me out in the woods? Are they going to put a bullet in my head?

One of them got out of the SUV. Matt says he heard another car start up. Suddenly, there was movement in his vehicle vehicle and they were back on the road. He was relieved to eventually find himself back home. Then, according to Matt, the kidnappers asked him an odd question. Sent me on the couch and asked me if I wanted to take a shower.

Shower? Shower. After all of this? After all that. So I said, sure, I'll take a shower. A shower? After terrorizing him for three hours, how strange. What was going on?

And then Matt's story took another bizarre turn. He says he was led into the kitchen where something was waiting for him on a table. They said, do you know what this is? And I said, no. And they said, this is C4 explosive. We're going to make an explosive device, and we're going to strap it to you because we don't trust you that you're going to do what you're told.

C4, a plastic explosive used by the military and terrorists. It can be molded like clay into any shape and detonated remotely. Hearing what was happening in the other room, Matt's mom began to cry. And then I could hear them unwrapping duct tape, lots and lots. I could hear that unwrapping, and that must have been when they were strapping it around him. And I began to cry harder and really panicked because as you're laying there, I'm thinking they're putting a bomb on him. Matt was left alone, a bomb tightly wrapped around his waist.

His anxiety was building as each minute seemed the last before eternity. It was just before daylight. Matt's mom says one of the men came back into her room and said something unexpected. One fella came in and said to me, I don't want you to get alarmed, but we're going to be using the vacuum. And I thought, what? Vacuum? They came in and I could hear them vacuuming out in my living room. And then they came in the bedroom and were vacuuming all around the bed and things. Six hours into their ordeal, the sun was soon to rise. The two assailants told Matt his workday was beginning,

and he'd soon be leaving to rob his own credit union. I hope not. And to ensure his cooperation, they advised him they were leaving an insurance policy in his mom's bedroom. They said, we're not taking any chances. We're going to put a bomb under her bed. And if you deviate from the plan, we're going to detonate both of your bombs. Matt says that plan included the threat to detonate his or his mom's bomb by cell phone at any time they wanted. At 10 a.m., they would text him the location of where to drop off the money.

And to make sure he stayed on time, they also attached a timer to his bomb that would automatically explode at 11 a.m. That was less than three hours away. And then at some point, they came over to me and said, it's time. They bring me to my car. At this point, they take the blindfold off me. They cut the zip ties off me. So rob the bank. Rob the bank.

We'll meet you at the drop-off place. Coming up. I did exactly what they told me. I called my boss. I said, this is my life. Don't play with it. Don't call the police. But his boss does.

As I turn the corner around to the front of the branch, I see all the police cars. That's when pure panic sets in. It was 8.30 a.m., eight and a half hours since the start of Connecticut executive Matt Yussman's nightmare. He was on his way to one of the branch offices of his credit union, claiming kidnappers had strapped a plastic explosive to his belly and rigged another device beneath his mother's bed back home where she lay bound. I'm driving to the credit union, and now for the first time I start to think of, wow, how's this going to play out? What's going to happen? So wait a second, are you meant to drive yourself? Is that what you're saying? Yes, they actually wanted me to drive my own car.

How are they going to control you? And that's, I figured they were just going to follow me around and watch me the whole time. Two bombs, he said, that could be detonated by the touch of a cell phone. And, oh, by the way, a timer on his device that would go off at the stroke of 11 a.m. I called my boss, and I said, my mother and I are victims of a home invasion. I'm currently sitting in my car right now strapped to an explosive device. And I'm coming to the credit union to empty the vault. You need to evacuate the branch.

Are you using any code words or any pre-assigned? No, there's no, um, this is real. I said, this is my life. Don't play with it. And don't notify the police. And I said, don't call the police. Matt's boss ignored his plea of no cops. 911, what's your emergency?

I just received a call a few minutes ago from one of our VPs, and he's instructing me to vacate our New Britain branch because they're going to come and rob it. That 911 call eventually ended up here, police headquarters in New Britain, Connecticut, where the credit union was located. I was a brand new sergeant. We had just gotten done with a roll call in the morning. The phone rang at the main desk of the police department. You know, there's a bank robbery going on and a guy is driving to the bank right now and he has a bomb strapped to his chest. This is not your usual Monday morning, Sergeant.

You know, we're trying to figure out if it was a joke or not. It was no joke. Sergeant David McCarskey was one of the first out the door. What do you know at that point, Sergeant? So the only thing that we knew is they gave us a plate on the car. It was a red car. The sergeant had Matt's license plate number and the model of the red car he was driving. I get to the credit union and I don't see anything. There's no cars. I'm like,

fantastic. As I turn the corner around to the front of the branch, that's when pure panic sets in. Now I see all the police cars. The kidnappers told Matt not to call the police. And now there they were. Curtains. He now had two hours and 15 minutes until that bomb would explode. Matt eased into a parking spot. I rolled down my window, and they're all screaming,

get out of the car, get out of the car. He gets out of the car. we get out of our cars, and there was like a good 15 seconds of silence. Him looking at us, and us looking at him, and trying to figure out what was going on. Makarski's partner drew his gun, aiming straight at Matt. And I said, I'm wearing an explosive device. And they're like, show us. So I lift up my shirt, show them what I was wearing. And we're like,

holy cow, I can't believe this is real. You were persuaded something was there, huh? Oh, 100%. Because it was a frigid nine degrees out that February morning, the sergeant told Matt to get back in his car. Then he and his partner protectively stayed about 100 feet away. Jim Wardwell was at that time New Britain's chief of police, overseeing a force of 165 officers for the 73,000 people who live in this central Connecticut city. Word of this extraordinary crime immediately ran up the ranks, and the chief, along with his top command staff, rushed to the credit union. What do you do to secure the area? Immediate response. Pretty much all available personnel were sent to the area. We cleared buildings in the area. We put schools in lockdown.

They closed off the surrounding streets and shut down a major thoroughfare. SWAT teams and heavy equipment rolled in, and the state's bomb squad was called to get the device off of Matt. Shutting down an interstate is not a small decision. Calling in other agencies to assist is not a small decision. And all those decisions had to be made, and they were made very, very quickly. Back at the credit union parking lot, Sergeant Makarski, a member of the crisis negotiation team, became the point man to communicate with Matt. The sergeant yelled his cell number to Yussman, and they started to talk over the phone.

So what's the demeanor of this man who says he got a bomb on him? Even keeled. You know, he was very calm for the situation. At least for now. Members of the state police bomb squad, meanwhile, were scrambling, traveling in from different parts of the situation. At least for now. Members of the state police bomb squad, meanwhile, were scrambling, traveling in from different parts of the state. But precious time was melting away. Then, at 10 a.m.,

the kidnappers started texting. They wanted their money. One hour to go until the bomb was supposed to explode. Coming up... I say to the police, I'm like, what do you want me to tell them? Matt needed answers, and he didn't have much time to get them.

Now your mind starts to think about weird things, like, am I going to know it when it goes off? What are you going to feel? It was now close to 10 a.m., almost 90 minutes since Matt first drove into the parking lot of the credit union. You're just sitting in the car and you're strapped to explosive dice. An explosive device due to go off in about an hour. I'm like, are my employees watching this? I'm like, I don't want anyone to see me blow up. I'm like, this is not what I want to be doing.

So that next hour was just awful. The pressure was becoming unbearable. Now I'm starting to cry. And you're waiting for the bomb squad. And I'm waiting for the bomb squad. As the state police bomb squad headed to the scene from different parts of Connecticut, Sergeant David McCarskey was talking to Matt by cell phone from his car. My big thing was just trying to keep him calm and keep him talking and, you know,

assuring him that we had help on the way and, you know, we were going to get through it. He is my one and only contact, my only person that I'm talking to. He tried to keep me from losing it. Terrified as he was, Matt was still able to tell the police about his mom's dire situation. Nine miles from the credit union parking lot, the Yussman house in Bristol, Connecticut, was eerily quiet. Matt's mom was convinced the kidnappers were gone, but to where she didn't know. She decided to work herself free from her bed. It took me a while to get out of it because they had wrapped that duct tape around and around. She had no idea that the authorities were descending on her home in force. As I got myself out of the

restraints, I could see right out into our driveway. And when I looked out there, it was full of police. When I opened the door to holler out, one of the policemen with a big rifle pointed right at me, and he said, walk up to the driveway. Matt's mom was unharmed, at least physically. Emotionally, she was alarmed as she talked to the police. And they said, lift up your shirt. And I thought, what are they doing? Apparently, they thought maybe I had a bomb on myself. So I lifted up my shirt. They checked me out and okay. And they put me in a police car. Back in the credit union parking lot, Matt was told his mom was okay. He was not.

Precious minutes were ticking by. Meanwhile, you've been told that there's a timer. Right. On this bill. Which is going to go kaboom at 11 o'clock. 11 o'clock. And the original plan was that I would be done at 10. The kidnappers told Matt they would text him at 10 a'clock. At 11 o'clock. And the original plan was that I would be done at 10. The kidnappers told Matt

they would text him at 10 a.m. with an address where he was to drop off the million dollars taken from his credit union. The text, they said, would be sent from his mother's cell phone, which they'd taken from her.

I mean, right at 10 o'clock, I get the first text, are you done yet? From the home invaders. From the criminals there. And I say to the police, I'm like, what do you want me to tell them? I talk to Matt and we go, listen,

we're going to roll with it. We're going to tell them that you're still working hard to get the money that they need. What we need to do is just buy a little bit of time. Matt texted, it is more money than I anticipated, moving as fast as I can. The kidnappers texted back, It is more money than I anticipated. Moving as fast as I can. The kidnappers texted back, That is good.

In fact, he hasn't made it into the bank at all. He never made it into the bank. He doesn't have any money. No, zero. And this is all keep him talking, keep him on the line. Yes. At 10.24 a.m., 36 minutes before the device on Matt was due to explode,

the kidnappers texted again with an address where the money was to be dropped. A nearby cemetery. Matt should leave the money at the flagpole. At the same time, cops were able to trace where the texts were coming from, near that cemetery. They raced over, but found no one. Whoever was in that specific area was no longer in the area. We probably missed them by minutes.

And that only upped the ante for Matt. Tick tock. Now it's 1035 and I'm like, oh crap. I'm like, I don't see the bomb squad. And I'm like, where's the bomb squad? It was 25 minutes before the device would detonate and thoughts, terrible ones, raced through Matt's mind.

He recalled the shocking story of the pizza delivery guy in Erie, Pennsylvania, who said he was kidnapped and had a bomb locked around his neck. I knew that he was forced to try to rob a bank, that it didn't go well, that he was actually killed during all this. Matt thought about the end of his life. Now your mind starts to play the tricks, and you start to think about weird things like, am I going to know it when it goes off?

Do you hear the noise first? Do you see a flash first? What are you going to feel? For Matt, the excruciating wait continued as the clock counted down to 11 a.m. I'm just sitting there. There are no more texts from the criminals. They've stopped. They expect me to be at that drop-off point. We're no more texts from the criminals. They've stopped. They expect me to be at that drop-off point.

We're getting closer. It's 1045. It's 1050. I am now in full panic mode. Coming up, TikTok. It's just like the movies. The guy's wearing the big suit, and he walks up to me, and they're examining it. And it didn't look good.

We saw multiple wires running through the tape. As federal, state, and local officers secured the area with armor, Matt Yussman was in a panic. The improvised device duct taped to his waist was set to go off at 11 a.m., just minutes away. I start asking, like, where's the bomb squad? It's getting closer to 11. This thing is supposed to go off. The bomb squad was now on the scene. That was the first and only time I responded to an incident with an individual that had a device actually attached to their body. Connecticut State Police Trooper Mike Avery, now retired, was on the bomb squad. Avery's team assembled a bomb robot, thinking they could use it to inspect the device and maybe defuse it from a safe distance. The bomb squad didn't know what it had walked into.

We didn't know if this individual was a suspect or a victim. Unbeknownst to Matt, four police sniper teams were getting into position around his car, targeting him. He has an explosive device on him, and if he doesn't follow our instructions, and in the event if he rushed out of that perimeter towards us or towards other law enforcement personnel, deadly force would have to be utilized. Getting the sniper teams in place, deploying the robot, and figuring out a safe approach all ate up more of the clock.

It was just two minutes to 11. I sat there and watched that clock because I had my cell phone there and it went, you know, 1058, 1059. And I'm thinking this is it. Tick tock. Absolutely. He's looking at his watch. You know, I'm looking at my phone and it's clicking closer to 11 o'clock. To be honest, I didn't pray. I didn't know what to do. I just sat there and counted it down and waited.

And when that phone hit 11, my heart stopped, and I just sat there. There was no explosion. And I looked around around and nothing happened. After 11 o'clock passed, there was definitely a sigh of relief by everybody there. You know, the last thing we wanted was for anything to happen to Matt. And I'm like, why am I not dead? Finally, it was about 11.05 or so, 11.06, somewhere near where I said, well, maybe they lied to me. Maybe there is no timer.

No one except the kidnappers knew what was wrapped around Matt. After about 10 minutes, the bomb squad ordered Matt out of his car. We could see that there was something attached to his torso, but we could not get a good visual on it. Avery and his partner abandoned their bomb robot plan because they could get a better sense of the device with the naked eye from the safety of an armored vehicle. They drew alongside Matt. At that time, he slowly lifted his shirt up

and exposed the device to us. And it was completely wrapped around his body with like a heavy-duty gorilla tape, and you could not see anything else other than the large mass in front of his torso. Then Avery made his move, volunteering to remove the device by himself. He suited up and approached Matt. This photo was taken at that moment. It had been 11 hours since Matt and his mother said they were

first kidnapped. Now, here he was on his knees without a coat. It was nine degrees out. And it's just like the movies. The guy's wearing the big suit, and he walks up to me, and they're examining it. The cops decided to x-ray Matt's torso right there in the lot. Using a portable x-ray machine, it took just one minute to create an image. We saw multiple wires running through the tape and around that organic material. At that point, we couldn't determine, is it actual C4 or some type of explosive, or is it just a chunk of clay to simulate a hoax device?

They're looking at it and coming up with a plan of what they're going to do. Finally, the guy says, you know, we're going to take this off you. So I went down with a couple cutting tools, had him remain on his knees facing away from me, lifted his shirt up and slowly started cutting the tape up his back. As if Matt hadn't already gone through enough this day, another sticky problem came up. He was extremely hairy.

This was gorilla tape, and it was wrapped around his entire torso. So while removing it, we were causing quite a bit of pain because it was removing all the hair from his torso. We finally get the bomb off me, and it goes down to my feet, and he goes, kick it it away and then run with me and go behind the truck. Well, I go to kick the bomb away and it gets stuck to my shoe and I start to run and I start dragging the bomb with me and the bomb squad guy starts screaming at me, you're dragging the bomb, you're dragging the bomb. And I'm like, oh my God, oh my God. Man, I'm sorry I'm laughing, but this is a funny thing. Stuck on your shoe like a piece of toilet paper. Yes, exactly.

And at the time, I wasn't laughing, but God, looking back now, that was one of the more comical moments of the whole ordeal. Avery says it didn't happen quite like that. He thinks Matt's memory may be affected by his emotional trauma. We did not tell him to run, and it was not stuck to him. But at last, Matt's ordeal was over, or so he thought. As I get to the first SWAT guy, I tap him on the shoulder and I'm like, thank you. And they immediately grabbed both my hands and put me in handcuffs and throw my

hands behind my back. And I'm like, I don't understand why they're, what's going on here. Coming up. They're like, we're, what's going on here. Coming up. They're like, we're doing this for your own safety. And I'm like, my own safety? You're the ones with the guns. But police had their reasons to be suspicious, especially after what they heard about Matt from his relatives. One of the first things had been taped to him, but was shocked to find himself now confined in handcuffs.

The local station, NBC Connecticut, caught the moment he was led into an ambulance. And I'm like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm the victim. Are you arresting me? And they're like, no, we're doing this for your own safety. And I'm like, my own safety? You're the one with the guns. And they're like, we're going to take you to the hospital. At the hospital, investigators had Matt checked out. They took these photos, Matt's waist red and raw from where the bomb tech pulled off that duct tape, and they took pictures of the device itself. It turned out that after the massive bomb scare, the multi-agency security operation, and all the white-knuckled fear, the supposed bomb was a fake. Nothing more than modeling clay with wires running through it that connected to nothing. There was no timer counting down to 11 a.m.

And there wasn't any kind of explosive device beneath the bed of Matt's mom, Valerie. So Matt and Valerie would have some explaining to do. Why don't you start at the top for us? Okay. By now, at Bristol Police Station, detectives were questioning Valerie and were learning some strange details about the kidnappers' M.O. What did they use to bite your hands?

They didn't. They left my hands free. Your feet were just tied together and to the back? Yeah. But your hands were free? My hands were free, yeah. Why would real kidnappers leave her hands free? And another weird detail. According to Valerie, the kidnappers behaved like gentlemen. They were trying not to hurt me or do anything that was bad.

After he taped my feet to the bed, he kind of hugged me and he said, Don't worry, we're not here to hurt you. He brought me in a can of soda. I had cookies on the counter and stuff. He brought them in so I wouldn't be hungry. I mean, you know, he was being very nice to me. Investigators took Valerie's clothes as evidence, as she offered more strange details.

The criminals cleaned her home. He said, I'm going to vacuum the floors. I almost wanted to say to him, oh, you do housekeeping too, you know, as a side? I thought that was funny. She said they even called her ma'am. Val, what is going on? These guys that are calling you ma'am and giving you cookies and juice,

and now they're vacuuming your house? But they're still terrorizing you. Yeah, I thought this was bizarre. Investigators would hear more bizarre details when they brought Matt to New Britain police headquarters. What was up with that nighttime shower he took hear more bizarre details when they brought Matt to New Britain police headquarters. We have a ton of questions for you. What was up with that nighttime shower he took while the kidnappers were in his home? Did you find that odd?

Yes, I did. Actually, I don't know why they would. It was their idea? Yeah. As for that strange nighttime drive the kidnappers took Matt on, he didn't have a convincing explanation. Do you know which way he went? They kept making turns. And why did kidnappers speak to Matt using a digitally altered voice? You know, like when they do it on TV

and they change some guy's voice and something like very similar to that. Definitely not human voice. Definitely not human, yep. Former New Britain police chief Jim Wardwell was getting reports on what was being said in those interview rooms. I can see how your guys are concerned about what it is you have here. He's talking about these kind of wacko, unorthodox kidnappers, home invaders, who do strange things. The investigators were not ruling out any possibility. Mr. Yussman was telling a version of events that, by a lot of accounts, would make people pause and say, really? So much of Matt's story didn't add up.

As he sat in the police interview room, the atmosphere turned chilly. The detective's questions suddenly had sharp edges. Financially, there's no issues. Yeah, I'm just... As far as it goes for you. Well, yeah. What Matt didn't know was that morning, right after his credit union boss called the police,

investigators started to dig into his life, reached out to people he knew well, found out stuff. When you talk to your brother and nephew, one of the first things they mention is that you're a big gambler. They say you owe money that you gamble a ton. And that's completely false.

I mean, I don't gamble a ton. This was the troubling picture coming together for police. A guy with possible money problems, kidnappers who were friendly to his mom, who then let him drive himself to rob his own credit union with a bomb that turned out to be a fake, and no trace of any criminals themselves. They figured he had to be somehow involved. There's just too many things. You have the ability and the access to do it, okay? So that's why I think maybe you're an unwilling participant in this thing, that somebody leveraged or forced you into this. And if the kidnappers did in fact disguise their faces and voices,

that didn't help Matt. There's only one reason they do that, and that's that they know you. Okay. Had Matt gotten himself tangled in a scheme to get rich that had spun out of control? This is your opportunity to put it all on the table. If there's something else going on, we can help you.

If someone's trying to weaponize you, we're going to play hardball with you. There is nothing, I can say unequivocally, that I have nothing indirectly, directly to do with this. But as detectives pressed Matt to fess up, his answers didn't satisfy them. Investigators seemed so convinced Matt wasn't being straight with them, they wondered if his mom was somehow part of the scheme. Have you lied to us at all? No. While you've been in here?

No. You haven't told us any untruths? Not that I know of. In order to protect Matthew or anyone else? No, no. If there is something else going on, I'm hearing that. If there's something else going on, now that I'm a scientist. Police were undeterred.

They took Matt's DNA. It's open wide. It's going to be a little uncomfortable. Then they asked him to sit for a polygraph, Police were undeterred. They took Matt's DNA. Then they asked him to sit for a polygraph, warning him. Oh, it would turn out to be bad. Very bad for Matt. But what no one knew is that this unbelievable tale on reeling in Connecticut was only on Chapter One. And 800 miles away, unsuspecting folks down in Tennessee had no idea they were about to be part of this story. Coming up, it happens again. He is to empty the vault of $3.4 million.

For every minute that he was late, his wife was going to lose a finger. And later, a high-stakes stalemate. A bank employee refuses to open the vault. And a high-speed car chase that could crack the case. He's just hitting a third vehicle. It's all under investigation. Very, very fluid. New Britain's then-police chief, Jim Wardwellwell held a news conference to calm his nervous community. The city was on edge after being partially shut down when Matt Yussman showed up at his credit union strapped with an explosive.

The bomb turned out to be a fake. Certainly we're considering all possibilities, whether or not he was coerced, doing something against his will, or a suspect. Could your guys even determine whether the story was true at that point? Could not. You could not determine exactly what the facts were. But you're not finding any corroborating evidence in his vehicle or at his home? There's no corroborating evidence other than his mom. No evidence to support Matt's story. Investigators searched his house and car with a fine-tooth comb, looking for fingerprints or DNA from the kidnappers, but found nothing.

What's more, Matt did take a polygraph test and failed part of it. Results indicated he wasn't telling the truth when asked if he had any involvement in the scheme. I know I'm in trouble. I know that I'm needing an attorney and that this is not going to go well for me. Matt was right. In the following days, authorities got search warrants for his home. They collected computers and phones, subpoenaed his bank records, and started digging into his finances. Then Matt was placed on paid leave from his job.

You're investigated not only by the authorities. I'm actually now getting investigated by my own credit union to make sure that they can clear me. While Matt tried to save his reputation, investigators in another part of the country were about to uncover a whole series of similar crimes. Crimes that would span three states, involving high-speed chases and even more victims. This is where the story takes a turn south, to Tennessee. It was April 28, 2015, two months after the Connecticut home invasion. An assistant U.S. attorney happened to be in the middle of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park when he got an urgent message.

Hey, please call the FBI when you get cell reception. I got something about a kidnapping. That man was David Lewin. He learned that earlier that day, a guy named Mark Ziegler was on his way to work as the CEO of the Y-12 Federal Credit Union in a suburb of Knoxville. As he was pulling out of his garage, he noticed a garbage can was knocked over. So he puts his car in park, gets out of the car, goes to fix the garbage can, at which time he is accosted by two masked men wearing dark clothing,

ski masks with guns drawn. As an assistant U.S. attorney, Lewin was assigned to help the FBI investigate the Ziegler story from that first day. He knew nothing about the Connecticut case, but the descriptions of the two suspects were similar. One slender and tall, the other stockier. The first guy with the gun had a big sunburst tattoo on his neck. That mask was pulled up so that that was exposed. Distinctive. Distinctive. And then another person came through who appeared to be a black male with a black bandana and sunglasses, but a black bald head, again with guns drawn. The assailants forced Ziegler back into his house. His wife and teenage son were inside. All three frightened family members were handcuffed and placed in the living room. Mark Ziegler was then given a three-page note.

It contained chilling details on what was about to happen. He was going to rob his own credit union. He is to empty the vault of $3.4 million, as well as any and all gold bullion. The CEO was given a strict deadline. He had less than 45 minutes to get the cash and gold. If he failed, the consequences would be devastating. For every minute that Mr. Ziegler was late, his wife was going to lose a finger.

Oh. And when she ran out of fingers, their adult daughter, Brittany, who lived in Texas at the time, they have people watching Brittany in Texas. They had eyes on the daughter. They had eyes on the daughter, and they were going to chop her up and mail her to the family if Mr. Ziegler failed to comply. How do they have so much knowledge about this family? We don't know. But they're getting their facts right. They're getting their facts right. Mick Nocera was the lead investigator for the FBI. He said what happened next took an even more bizarre turn.

The tall, slender guy, white male, went outside. A few minutes later, a white female comes in through the back door. A female? A female. So now you've got three assailants. Three. The white female comes in and says something about that he told me to come in and get milk for the baby.

For the baby? So now you've got four players here. One of them is an infant, apparently. An infant that needs milk. So is this a gang or what's going on, do you think? Obviously, we're dealing with a crew. Ziegler arrived at his credit union as captured on security cameras. He went to the vault and started loading cash into a black bag

given to him by the kidnappers and he slipped one of the employees this note. of note that says home invasion, call police. He has bags and walks into the mall. Ziegler filled the black bag with over $200,000 in cash. Then he got in his car and headed towards the parking lot exit where an arriving police officer stopped him. The criminals were listening into everything through a cell phone in Ziegler's pocket. Mark Ziegler is telling them through the phone that the police are here. They're approaching me.

What do you want me to do? And what he heard through the phone was two words, abort, abort. And then the phone went dead. In the meantime, the kidnappers blindfolded Ziegler's wife and son and loaded them into the family's SUV. They drove to a parking lot and dumped the vehicle, with Ziegler's wife and son still inside. Eventually, the two freed themselves and found someone to call police. So in the end, the family got out alive and the bank robbers got no money from it.

No money, but they escaped. The Zigglers provided a detailed description of the suspects, which authorities used to create this sketch of the black male and this one of the female suspect who came in the house looking for milk. Now, I'm sure the crime scene techs processed the house and the vehicles within an inch. Did they get lucky? Did they find anything? We found nothing. It was clean. Fingerprints? Fibers? No fingerprints. No DNA. Nothing was left behind.

Nothing to stop the next attack. And there would be a next one. Coming up, a young couple and their baby barricaded behind locked doors. The pry bar is now being used on the master bedroom doors. And a high-stakes stalemate. The bank employee refuses to open the vault. She says they're going to kill me unless you do this thing for me. Yes, she said they're going to kill me, they're going to kill my child. Connecticut, July 2015.

For five months, Matt Yussman remained under a heavy cloud of suspicion. By that time, he'd read about the Tennessee credit union CEO held hostage and told to rob his own vault. Yussman told investigators in Connecticut it must be the same guys who kidnapped him and his mother. I found this to be very odd that another credit union executive was forced to try to rob his credit union. It's the same people. There's no way that this is a coincidence. They told me it was just coincidence, copycat doing this. Matt had been allowed to return to his job, but he was still under investigation. The FBI had taken over his case from the local police, and according to Mack, there were serious doubts about his innocence.

I was told there wasn't a 95% chance I was guilty, there was a 100% chance I was guilty. And I said, I'm in trouble. Back in Tennessee that same month, it would be another family's turn to be traumatized. A young couple was beginning their day, the Harris's, Tanner, Abigail, and their five-month-old son. He and Abigail were just in this cute little love phase. They had the new baby and they were very happy. Jamie Satterfield is a reporter with the Knoxville News Sentinel who covered this story. She remembers just having this really goofy grin on her face. And she leaves the baby with Tanner, and she goes down the steps.

She's going to take a quick jog. And frankly, she said she might come back and get a little flirty with her husband. So that's why she had the goofy grin on her face. So she gets down to the bottom of the steps, opens the door, and then boom. As soon as she opened the garage, she saw two masked men, ski masks, dark clothing, with guns. She immediately slams the door shut. Using a crowbar,

one of the assailants ripped open the door. He's now in the kitchen of the house. Abigail ran upstairs. She's trying to warn her husband. They then chase her up the stairs. She runs down the hallway to the master bedroom. She slams the master bedroom door shut. Then her husband locked the door. They immediately hear that door frame starting to crack because the pry bar is now being used on the master

bedroom door. Where she's huddling with her husband and child. And child. How absolutely horrifying. There's only one place left to go. They go into the master bathroom. They get all the way back into the the bath, the farthest point they could get away, and Tanner's trying to hold the door, and Abby's, and the baby's crying at this point. It's just chaos. That's the last doorway. Yes. The two invaders forced themselves into the bathroom. Then one drew a gun and delivered a refrain the other families had also heard. You're going to rob your bank today for us.

Tanner, as you may have guessed, worked at a local bank as a loan officer. He was handcuffed and both he and his wife eventually were blindfolded. The attackers then loaded the entire family in the Harris' car, including their five-month-old son. The attackers knew where Tanner worked and drove there with the family. FBI agent Mick Nocera. They're going to keep the son and the wife while he goes in and robs the bank. This is a child in arms. This is a baby.

This is about a five-month-old baby. Does this make this a special case? You're definitely ramping up when you're starting to talk about a defenseless infant. Tanner went into the vault, as seen from this bank surveillance camera, and loaded a black bag with cash. He then went out to the bank's parking lot to the car where the kidnappers were holding his family. You see the car stop and the passenger side door open. You see Tanner Harris hand over a very large bag, but you can see a very brief struggle. Tanner demanded that the kidnappers let his wife and child go before he would turn over the cash. At which time, bag is yanked, door is shut, car speeds out of the parking lot, and an image of a husband and father left in that parking lot

by himself, watching the car speed away. Two armed desperados have taken his family. Yes. The kidnappers eventually left Abigail and her son in their own vehicle while they took off in a getaway car. They had escaped once again, but this time they netted $195,000 for their efforts. So in this case, you believe you have two middle-aged white males. Correct. As the bank robbers. Right. It's not three. Not three. There's not a woman. No woman, no black male, no tattoo reported. So after you had two of these things, how was it playing as a story? How was Knoxville hearing about it? I can't say that people were universally frightened. I think the greater harm initially was that people were suspicious of these families. That's what I heard. I had cop friends who were suspicious. We as journalists were suspicious of these families. That's what I heard. I had cop friends who were suspicious.

We as journalists were kind of suspicious. Like, really? They kidnap you, but then they let you go? And, you know, it just sounded unbelievable. Unbelievable, maybe, but it would happen again, this time in northern Tennessee. Three months after the Harris case, a young mother was starting her day and struggling to get her toddler son secured in her car. He wants candy for breakfast, and he is throwing a fit. So she's quite distracted anyway, when all of a sudden, you know, she feels movement. Brooke Lyons didn't have time to think. In an instant, she and her three-year-old son were under attack. And she looks up and here's a guy with assault rifle pointed at her. Two male attackers force Brooke into the car with her son. That's right, they headed here, this credit union in Elizabethton where she worked as a $9 an hour teller. The people knew where Brooke worked. They knew how to get to her bank without

being told. Jeff Blanton is a special agent for the FBI. He investigated Brooke's case and says she was instructed to go inside and get $350,000 or else. She's been told by these two guys if the police are called, if she doesn't do as she's instructed, then there's going to be a shootout, that she and her child will be in the middle of it. A frantic Brooke entered the credit union, screamed that she needed the vault opened and the bags loaded with money because her three-year-old son was being held hostage outside. That's when Brooke's day got even worse. She finds her boss in the bank and says,

two men have Carson with guns. I need to get into the vault. Her boss refuses to open the vault. Who of us can be judgmental in that kind of circumstance? But. Right. Masked gunmen have her child outside the door. Brooke Lyons' response was singular.

She pointed at her and said, you just killed us. The credit union's security cameras caught the excruciating moments Brooke was desperately running around looking for help. All she can think about is her son. She runs out of the bank, opens the passenger side back door of her car, throws the bag in there, drapes herself over Carson, begs them not to shoot her, and tells them to drive because the cops are being called as they speak. Surprisingly, the criminals eventually let both of them go, leaving them in her car while they took off in another vehicle. They didn't get any money. Two bizarre robbery stories had the Knoxville rumor mill buzzing about inside jobs, but now there were three.

People were wondering who would be next. FBI investigators were frustrated. They had no solid leads. By that time, they'd already released sketches of the suspects from the attack on the Ziegler family, hoping that might advance the case. No one would have guessed that the big break in the investigation would happen when this assistant restaurant manager took his fiancé's little red car for a drive on the highway. Coming up... Once he hit me, I knew at this point, you know, this guy's running.

A high-speed car chase that could crack the case. He's just hitting a third vehicle. It was surreal. It was like, you're not going to believe what happens. This is Adam Russo. No, he isn't a bank executive or a teller, not another victim of the violent bank robbing gang terrorizing East Tennessee. Back in September 2015, more than a month before Brooke Lyon's ordeal, Adam was an assistant restaurant manager on his way to a job interview.

Driving west on I-40 in North Carolina in a car he borrowed from his fiancee. What kind of car does she have, by the way? It's a 2005 Ford Focus. It's a little car, a little car. Yeah, yeah, a little car, you know, it gets you where you need to go. If you tried telling Adam he was on his way to becoming perhaps the most crucial player in a case that had befuddled an army of investigators, he'd have thought you crazy. But that was exactly what was about to happen. I remember looking in my rearview mirror and I could see, you know,

a couple of cop cars, their sirens, and a black SUV. I said, oh, that guy got, you know, this must have been going too quick, you know, and he's getting pulled over. I'm attempting to take over a vehicle traveling out of 40 West Town. This is the dash cam video from one of the police cars, and you may recognize it. It's that same dramatic high-speed chase footage we showed you at the beginning of our story. I looked back, and they were still following this guy. And that's when I kind of knew something was a little off.

You know, I was like, why is this guy not pulling over? Instead, the driver pulled up to Adam's little red car in the right-hand lane. And all of a sudden, this black SUV is on my tail. He's making these swerving gestures, you know, kind of like swipes, like, you know, in this type of motion. All I know is I remember putting two hands on the wheel. He hit me. Adam, freeze frame that moment, though. What the heck is going on?

Right. Once he hit me, I knew at this point, you know, this guy's running. You know, obviously, I was like, you know, you're not going to just hit me and just keep going with two cops on you unless something's going on. Adam then watched in horror as the black SUV hit another car with such force. He's just hitting a third vehicle. It spun out of control and crashed into the barrier. And I was like, well, you know, what's about to happen next, you know? Am I about to be caught out in the shootout in the middle of the interstate?

What are these guys doing? And then the doors open and here come two guys, huh? Yeah. Adam saw the driver and a passenger leap out of the car carrying black bags. Two guys start sprinting. Across the concrete barrier like an Olympic track runner, you know, and sprinting through the wooded area. North Carolina troopers decided not to give the men chase, not until reinforcements could arrive. Adam called his fiancee.

I was like, baby, you don't believe what just happened. She's like, no way. Are you serious? Like, she couldn't believe it. You know, it sounds like a movie scene. And that should have been it. A crazy tale maybe to tell the grandkids at Thanksgiving's hence. But that's where this story took a left turn into the Twilight Zone. Adam's fiancée called her dad, Brian O'Hare. So I received a call from my oldest daughter who told me, basically, you're not going to believe what happened with Adam. And immediately I thought there was a problem en route to his job interview. My future son-in-law has messed up a job interview. Let me put you on pause there and back you up and add an interesting biographical

detail here, because you are not only Adam's prospective father-in-law, what else are you? I'm a special agent in the FBI. And his years of FBI experience told Agent O'Hare that some things he heard about that chase were rather strange. Like the way the driver tried to ram Adam's car from behind. O'Hare recognized that as a police tactic called a pit maneuver. It's a police intervention technique. It is a trained technique. And what's the goal? That would end the hot pursuit and you get away? The goal is to get that engine to shut down and then get a hold of the driver and make your arrest.

If you're a criminal and you spin vehicles around, you can wreak havoc on the pursuing law enforcement officials. And there was something unusual about the way those men fled. I had no clue as to why they felt it so important to grab those bags or why they would choose to cross an oncoming interstate to make that getaway. It just didn't make any sense. It confounded the North Carolina troopers, too. And despite searching the area, authorities never did find the two men. Agent O'Hare didn't think much more about it until a

little more than a month later, when he was assigned to help on a case up in Elizabethton. As luck would have it, the Brook Lyons case. So you've had a bank robbery, a woman at gunpoint abducted, told to hold up her own bank. What little details stuck in your mind? It was very well organized. And that jogged Agent O'Hare's memory back to that high-speed car chase on I-40. It had, he thought, a similar sophistication. It struck me that those people had discipline. They had purpose. Both cases also involved two suspects and black bags.

I thought that it's not a guarantee that they're one in the same, but I wasn't aware of anyone else who would fit the bill. And so you're not pulling this out of a computer. Your gut is telling you something's going on here. It was some experience and some instinct that led me to believe that the two episodes could be connected. What started as a hunch was about to break this case wide open. Coming up, an abandoned GPS with a roadmap of a crime spree. It looked that they were casing the bank. Leading to another high-speed chase with a slightly

different ending. Get up! Get on the ground! Get down now! A sophisticated bank robbing crew was on the loose in East Tennessee. They'd already terrorized at least three unsuspecting families. We had no clue who was responsible for this. Agent, how bad are these guys? I would consider these two individuals some of the most dangerous criminals to walk in East Tennessee. Tips were coming in, and investigators chased down every lead, but turned up nothing. By late October 2015, all the FBI was left with was that hunch Agent O'Hare

had that a bizarre highway chase miles away in North Carolina had something to do with the Tennessee bank robberies. He shared his inkling with Agent Jeff Blanton. I remember Agent O'Hare telling me, hey, not for nothing, but this happened. It might be something, it might not. So at this point, it was really the only last remaining stone that we needed to go turn to see if there was anything to it. So they took a close look at what happened in North Carolina. Agent Blanton and Agent Nocera learned that whole crazy car chase started with a routine traffic stop for speeding, and they wanted to take a look at the dash cam video of the

suspects fleeing the crash. The descriptions were similar. You had two white males, one tall and athletic and one a little bit thicker and stockier. and the black bags stuck out because both the Zigglers and the Harris's had described these individuals when they came into their house that they had black bags. Your first pass through this, agent, what did you think? I knew we had bad guys. I thought we may have something here enough to continue investigation. At this point, I did not know if it was our bank robberies or if it wasn't. Turns out investigators had gone through the suspect's black banged up SUV and they found a GPS device. So it could be a goldmine of information. It can be. Tell me where you've been.

It can. An FBI special agent searched the device and found something intriguing. One of the locations marked on the GPS was a credit union near Knoxville. It looked that this was set up, that they were casing the bank and looking for escape routes and the like away from that bank. I talked to Jeff and I said,

they may not be our bank robbers, but they're somebody's bank robbers. Another GPS route led to a luxury rental home in Maggie Valley, a beautiful North Carolina tourist destination near the Smoky Mountains. Investigators reached out to the property manager, Melissa Pless. The FBI basically stated that they just had some concerns and needed to know who was staying in the home. Melissa told the agents that about five months earlier, she'd received an inquiry. Two men, a writer named Ron Bradford and his assistant, were looking for

a place to stay while they worked on their book. Melissa showed them around. They were in the market for something secluded with a garage. We traveled around the area, looked at a couple of homes, and they chose one. The men were staying in a home aptly named Southern Comfort. It was a month-to-month rental, and they paid in cash. Melissa said they were some of her best tenants. These guys treated me with utmost respect. They were very kind. On an occasion, they actually brought me a potted plant and a thank you card for, you know, being such hospitable rental company, I guess. They hardly seemed like gun-wielding kidnappers. Agent Blanton ran down the name of that author, Ron Bradford. Did the name check out? No, no,

the name did not check out. For Blanton, the clincher came when he talked to the property manager about the renter's car. I asked her if she had ever seen Ron in a black Lexus SUV. Because I know that one of the robberies in Knoxville, there was a black SUV that was burned after the robbery. She said yes, they had a black SUV, a Lexus, earlier in the summer. But that she hadn't seen him in it in several months. Did you think I got you? I'm on you now? At this point, I was convinced this was our bank robbery crew. Yes. It was time for a good old-fashioned stakeout.

Agent Blanton assembled a team to keep tabs on the two men. You see them coming and going? We did. We saw them coming and going. We were not able to identify who they are, but we were able to see them. And investigators learned the men were not alone. The surveillance team was able to ascertain that there was a female at the cabin. Did you know who she was? We did not know who she was.

Remember the Ziegler home invasion? There was that woman who came in the house and asked for milk for her baby. Could this be her? Authorities waited patiently for an opportunity to take the suspects down. Two weeks after they started their surveillance, they finally got their chance. Assistant U.S. Attorney David Lewin. The day before Thanksgiving, law enforcement sees them get into a silver Nissan Pathfinder with stolen Maryland license plates. The decision was made to stop the vehicle.

It was another high-speed chase, sirens blaring. The SUV weaved around traffic, then suddenly slowed down. We see the SUV pull over. We see the passenger side door open. We see a person get out of the vehicle holding a black bag, and then the SUV takes off. Get out! Get on the ground! Get down now! Don't you move! Put your hands up! One down, one to go. But the man on the ground, well, he wasn't behaving like a criminal caught in the act. He was behaving like a victim. He immediately says, hey, I'm not involved.

I don't know what's going on. I don't know who this guy is. I'm hitchhiking. I'm just trying to get a ride. Did the cops get the wrong guy? They'd have to sort that out later. There was still a man on the loose barreling down the highway. Coming up, there's more than one way to catch a crook.

Driver jumps out and takes off on foot. Red pickup truck pins him under the rear wheel. Runs him over? Runs him over. You can't make this stuff up. Can't. North Carolina state troopers were back on the tail of the SUV after its passenger bolted out to the side of the interstate. But as the SUV fled, the driver made a serious error. He cut off a red pickup truck.

The red pickup truck didn't like that. Road rage exploded. The driver of the red pickup took off in hot pursuit of the SUV, leapfrogging the state troopers. The police are now following the red pickup truck who's following the silver Pathfinder. So the lead position is Mr. Road rage. Mr. Road rage. Why'd you cut me off? Right. With the trooper and the pickup driver still giving chase, the SUV left the interstate, drove to a construction site, and went right into a ditch. Driver jumps out and takes off on foot. The red pickup truck pins him under the rear wheel. Runs him over? Runs him over. You can't make this stuff up. Can't. That's

the end of the chase. It's the end of the chase. The police pull up. They take the driver into custody. The driver of the SUV was banged up with a broken collarbone, broken ribs, and burns. Both he and the passenger who rolled out of the SUV were taken to a local jail. But who were they? Investigators learned the driver was Brian Witham, a guy with a rap sheet dating back to when he was in his 20s with convictions for armed robbery. He gave you the impression that he was the guy who would sit there and talk to you and give him the chance he would kill you and think nothing of it. Agent Nocera tried to get answers from Witham, but his suspect was mum. Witham comes in and right away says he's not going to rat.

The passenger who claimed to be a hitchhiker said his name was Michael Benanti. He was initially charged with felony possession of a stolen car. Here in an interview room, he ranted about his arrest. There should be no arrest here. I did nothing. I got a phone out of a car on the highway. Why? You know what I mean? There's no nothing. I didn't do nothing.

And bragged to the guard that he was a big deal executive. I'm the CEO of a company. Eight years I've been building it. And this stupid little arrest is going to destroy me. Investigators learned that Benanti in fact founded a company and was even profiled in the Wall Street Journal in 2014. His company was called Prisoner Assistant, and it managed finances for inmates in prison. Turns out Benanti had a lot of experience in that area.

He has multiple felony convictions to include attempted murder of a police officer, robbery, theft of property, and most importantly, a federal conviction of conspiracy to commit bank robbery. And what did you make of this business that he had? Bonatti was actually stealing from that business. Part of the reason the banks were being robbed was so that he could repay some of the monies that he owed to inmates that he was stealing from. Of course, he wasn't some random hitchhiker who happened to get into Witham's car, as he originally told police.

The two were in cahoots, and they had a long history together. They'd met in the late 90s at a prison in Pennsylvania and devised a plan to escape, but the attempt failed. Then both of them were sent to the Supermax prison in Colorado. Now again in custody, Benanti paced about while he called his sister, asking desperately that she bail him out. Danielle, I'm very, very sorry to have to give you this call. I love you. I'm in prison.

Then FBI agent Blanton arrived to interview him. Agent, first impressions. Who'd you see? Well, he was extremely arrogant. Pompous as well, Blanton said. He is the smartest person in the room, no matter what room he's in. He was very proud that he was a graduate of Supermax and that he had been to Supermax prison. Benanti was proud of his credentials at being a criminal. By now, they were sure they had the right guys, in part because of something that happened when Benanti was arrested. Benanti is white-knuckling something in his hand,

a clenched fist. His fist is opened up, and there's a crumpled piece of paper. The feds took a look at it. That crumpled paper had details, names and numbers that sent a chill down their spines. Three names, handwritten, bank executives in Greenville and Spartanburg, South Carolina, their titles, their bank locations. Prosecutor Lewin believed these were the next victims. So with a search warrant in hand, FBI agents and Lewin spent Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday of 2015

in the Smoky Mountains at a house called Southern Comfort. There, they found evidence of a sophisticated criminal enterprise. And evidence that would finally reveal who that mystery woman was. The woman who wanted milk for her baby. So agents, who is this? Coming up, the answer and a warning. Be careful what you put out for the world to see. The minute you hit post or hit send, you have no guarantee who's going to be able to access that.

That baby picture is out there. The baby picture is out there. The baby picture is out there. It was Thanksgiving Day 2015 in a house in the mountains of North Carolina. But there was no family gathering inside, just FBI agents and a prosecutor. They were searching for evidence to tie Michael Benanti and Brian Witham to that string of kidnappings and bank robberies in eastern Tennessee. When we originally walked in, the amount of evidence and items that were in the house was staggering. Including weapons, electronic devices, cameras, fake law enforcement IDs, fake tattoos, and massive amounts of photos.

Among them, this picture of Benanti and Witham, plus an inadvertent selfie. Benanti's face seen in a car's side mirror taken as they cased a bank. When the agents told Brian Witham what they had, he went from mum to spilling everything he knew to the feds. He laid out the entire scheme, his role in the scheme. It was a chilling criminal enterprise that involved learning every detail about their intended victims' lives. Step by step, they gathered intelligence.

First, they identified the bank. They would go to that bank, they would look on its social media page and hopefully get names and pictures of the people they thought would be worthy targets. Then they stalked the bank employees online. They could find them on LinkedIn. They could find them on Facebook. Victims would rise and fall on their target list depending on the quantity and quality of social media evidence that they put out there for the world to see. For example, in the Harris case, they saw pictures of the couple's newborn baby on Facebook.

With the Harris, they were planning on doing that one earlier, but they noticed that Ms. Harris had given birth and they pushed the date back. And Facebook also revealed that the Zigglers had an adult daughter who lived in Texas. And this enabled them to say, we've got people surveilling your child in Texas. Once their victims were picked out, the spying turned up close and personal. Witham would surveil them at home, hiding in their yards, watching and documenting their every move.

Commando style, GoPro cameras would be set up around the house. Brian Witham would camo up, have some food, and he would put himself up in a tree, sometimes right next to the play sets of these families with the children in the backyard, and watch quietly, making notes of when lights go off, when they come on, when people go to the kitchen table, when they go out to get the paper.

The duo would then take all the information they'd gathered, reams and reams of personal details, surveillance photos, maps, and compile them into a victim packet. Agents found over a dozen of these packets or dossiers in a black briefcase in the house. We have numerous packages that have names, address, children, grandchildren. Without revealing it, I'm seeing Spartanburg, which is South Carolina. That's correct. Georgia. Clayton, Georgia.

Georgia. Future business? Yes, sir. Future victims, which included some of the names and addresses on that crumpled piece of paper that Benanti had clutched in his hand. And we found thousands upon thousands of photographs on SD cards of some of these houses, locations, people. The dossiers weren't just of future targets. The agents also found one of a target they already knew very well, Brook Lions. What's the quality of their surveillance work?

So I'm our Division SWAT Team Leader, and these targeting packs that they have are of a quality that I could use for a hit. Or execute a search warrant or anything else. In talking to Witham, the agents learned why they never found any physical evidence, no DNA, fingerprints, or fibers. He and Benanti made sure not to leave a trace behind. Witham even shaved his body to try to eliminate as much DNA as possible.

While he was up in a tree all night doing surveillance, he brought a jug along with him. He relieves himself in the jugs so that he doesn't break surveillance and so that he doesn't leave any DNA behind. But now, even with the two men in custody, the feds still didn't know how many others were involved. Who was the African American man and the woman the Zigglers described? Was there anyone else involved? Three, four, five, six people.

Are we looking for two? What are the races? What are the genders that we're looking for? Brian Witham gave them the answer. They'd bought masks. So agents, who is this? That's the white female from the Ziggler robbery in April of 2015.

The one who said the baby needs some milk? Yes. Remember, the FBI had released a sketch of her to the public. It was eerily close. So what's actually happened here? Brian Witham had a fake tattoo on his neck, walked outside, put that mask on, and then came in and acted like a female coming in looking for milk for the baby. As for the African-American man, he was a mask as well. Benanti's DNA was found on it. Pretty good masks.

Yes, they spent roughly $1,500 apiece, we later found out, to purchase these masks. They were sewing in deception and red herrings and things designed to confuse the victims. The gender switch, the racial switch, the masks. All of that, because the victims then are going to report all of that to the police, and the police will then be looking for a black man, a woman with long brown hair. And it worked.

Witham also told the agents that he and Benanti didn't strike just in Tennessee. He lays out a crime spree up and down the eastern seaboard that began in the summer of 2014. He told them about a heist the two of them pulled off in 2014 in a small Pennsylvania town. And sure enough, there was a tall slender man and a heavy set guy. They held the tellers at gunpoint and made off with $156,000. And sure enough, we go up and we learn that that bank robbery was still unsolved.

Then Witham told them about another job. It was in Connecticut. And that's when the FBI finally connected the Tennessee cases to Matthew Yussman. And the poor victim had been regarded as a suspect. And he lived under the stigma of that until Witham gave up the story, didn't he? Right. Yes. The investigators up there,

they were looking at other leads and running things down. They were striking out the same as we were down here. Of course, Matt Yussman didn't know any of this yet. He was still very much under suspicion. In fact, he'd just appeared before a grand jury. It didn't go well. It was very obvious that they were going to recommend an indictment. That was November.

Then on December 1st, Matt thought his worst fear had come true. His boss said the FBI was coming to his office. And I tell him that I'm not going to allow them to arrest me right in front of all of my staff. The meeting was about an arrest, all right, but it wasn't Matt's. He said, we've apprehended two individuals down in North Carolina. We have overwhelming evidence that connects them to your case. You are now no longer a suspect. You are now completely exonerated.

Matt and his mom had been telling the truth all along. The overwhelming emotion, I actually broke down and cried in the office because all the emotions just came out that I'd been bottling up for nine months because I was trying to show that I was truly innocent. And as he learned more about his kidnapper's M.O., some of the strange details about his story made sense. For instance, remember how his mom said the kidnappers used her vacuum to clean up? That's because they didn't want to leave any evidence behind.

And Matt learned his captors found him on his credit union's website. Then they saw his picture and learned where he lived on Facebook. The criminals began their watch. You were surveilled? Yeah, I was surveilled. To this day, I still can't handle that I had people surveilling me and I didn't notice. If I had just paid more attention, would I have stopped this? In 2017, Benanti was convicted on 23 counts, including armed bank extortion and kidnapping.

He's now serving four consecutive life sentences plus 155 years. But he still maintains his innocence. Brian Witham, who struck a deal, was sentenced to 30 years. So what's the lesson for people here? Be careful what you put out for the world to see. The minute you hit post or hit send, you have no guarantee who's going to be able to access that at some point. That baby picture is out there. The baby picture is out there. You talking about

where you run in your neighborhood and how long, it's all out there. And these guys exploited all of those things you just mentioned. They mined it all. As for Matt Yussman, he's still upset at how he was treated by the FBI and local authorities. Former police chief Jim Wardwell. He'd like to have taken a swing at you guys. And rightfully so. Mr. Yesman was through so much. For any of us to have added to any of his anguish is regretful. He is a victim of a horrific crime and a good man and a courageous man.

And while the men behind this crime will be in prison for years and years into the future, all of their victims seem to have been deeply traumatized. Reporter Jamie Satterfield. They will never be able, really, I think, to ever fully rest easy in their own homes. That's the price I think they paid was security. Your life can never be the same. It never will be, no matter how much I put on that face and tell everybody that I'm fine. I'll never be the same after this.